Posts in "Afghanistan"

Thirty thousand more troops to Afghanistan is a $30 billion decision because, according to the White House, it costs about $1 million to send one soldier there.

That $1 million could be spent in many other ways. It could pay 30 caregiver stipends to family members of severely disabled veterans who have come back from Afghanistan and Iraq, providing them with first-rate care. It could support 70 unemployed people for a year. It could give tax credits to small business to create 77 new jobs. It could provide 102 full college scholarships for a year. It would pay for health insurance for 690 children for a year. It could refit 1,330 homes with renewable energy.

Should this money be spent on all those other things? Well no, of course not. The government has no business messing up all those other things as well. Nevertheless, these figures put the money -- which should be paying back our ballooning national debt -- in helpful context. And this opinion piece is definitely right about one thing:

This hemorrhaging of resources contributes to the economic deterioration of the United States.

I posted only half a day ago that the United States appeared to be getting ready to ramp up its potential presence in Pakistan, as Hillary Clinton expressed concern over Pakistani sovereignty. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has affirmed the assertion today while making a visit to the neighboring country of Afghanistan. Will 30,000 additional US troops ordered just days ago to the area be spread out and into Pakistan in the near future?

A bomb exploded near an intelligence office in central Pakistan on Tuesday, authorities said, damaging the building and killing at least 12 people amid a surge of extremist violence that has prompted the U.S. to offer additional aid in the country's battle against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The attack came as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Washington was ready to work more closely with Pakistan as soon as Islamabad expressed willingness.

"The more they get attacked internally .. the more open they may be" to help from the United States," Gates said during a trip to Afghanistan. "But we are prepared to expand that relationship at any pace they are prepared to accept."

The general public and members of the Council on Foreign Relations are apprehensive and uncertain about America’s place in the world. Growing numbers in both groups see the United States playing a less important role globally.... And the general public, which is in a decidedly inward-looking frame of mind when it comes to global affairs, is less supportive of increasing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan than are CFR members.

Click here for the full report, and take a look at its graphs and charts below. As you'll see if you read the full piece, the public isn't better on everything -- it's more aggressive toward Iran, for example. But nonetheless, winds of noninterventionism, even if poorly understood as of yet, seem to be blowing.

Not surprisingly, the generals are reportedly happy to have been provided with additional cannon fodder for what the Afghan defense minister called their "historic responsibility" in Afghanistan. The (literal) man on the Afghan street doesn't agree:

...Esmatullah, a young construction worker on a Kabul street corner, was unimpressed. "Even if they bring the whole of America, they won't be able to stabilize Afghanistan. Only Afghans understand our traditions, geography and way of life."

He and Ron Paul should hang out. More concerning from the Reuters report on Obama's speech:

In his speech, Obama also focused on Pakistan, saying a cancer had taken root in its border region with Afghanistan and promised U.S. help to end it. Some officials in Islamabad fear the U.S. surge in Afghanistan will further destabilize their country.

Hopefully he won't decide we need to "fix" that problem too. More here.

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so....

Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.

Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.

His unfortunate hesitancy to openly criticize Obama aside, Grayson is just as articulate a speaker against the immoral, unconstitutional, and unnecessary war in Afghanistan as he isagainstthe (immoral, unconstitutional, and unnecessary) Fed.

As more and more young Americans are killed in Afghanistan each and every day, President Obama faces a decision that could decide his presidency: to stay or not to stay. American soldiers are presented with the enormous, probably impossible task of eradicating the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and building a nation of literal sticks and stones in to a “stable democracy.” If President Obama does choose to stay, he seriously needs to consider how he is going to justify such a war.

The morality of this war has hardly been talked about by anyone. Discussion of this war is largely limited to tactics and numbers with little, if any, talk about the skewed moral compass this war is being fought with. Just at cursory glance at the war thus far reveals something a bit distressing. While this may be something hard to comprehend for the many who believe that the US has done no harm, America does in fact kill civilians. And lots of them. The debate over whether these attacks are intentional or unintentional is besides the point: thousands of Afghan civilians have died as a result of the war, many more than 9/11, the justification for entering the war in the first place. Disproportionate force has been used and is consequentially immoral, all American Exceptionalism aside. Speaking of exceptional, does this apply to our morals or just our military?

Fifty-two percent of the 1,001 adult Americans polled Nov. 12-15 now say the war there has not been worth the cost, down 13 points in the last 11 months....

Once, Obama's war policies were his strongest poll suit (63%). Now, only 45% approve of Obama's handling of Afghanistan; more (48%) don't. His war support among independents, a crucial ingredient in the Democrat's election victory 54 weeks ago, has slipped to 39%.

Apparently Mr. Obama has not yet realized that more of the same isn't popular among people who (thought they) voted for change. In other good news, the hawkish "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" argument is losing ground too, even as the current administration recycles that old line from the Bush years:

Ominously, for Obama, however, less than a quarter of Americans now buy that argument. Nearly two-thirds (64%) currently say the risk of terrorism at home is the same whether we continue to fight there or withdraw.

It seems that we cannot seem to learn from our own mistakes. The basic foreign policy of strategy of America has been "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." This policy has led to the US support of incredibly brutal and corrupt regimes including, but not limited to, the Afghani Mujahideen, Pinochet, and Pol Pot. As long as they were opposing those who we believed to be our enemies, we funneled weapons, money, and training to these groups. This support for those of ill intent has bred a system where corruption is the norm and brutality is accepted as part of the way wars are fought.

This way of war has easily cemented itself in the current war in Afghanistan. Whether its support for the undemocratically-elected President Karzai or the CIA paying off his drug lord/parliament member of a brother, corruption seems to be the name of the game in Afghanistan. Our support of the Northern Alliance has allowed Afghanistan to produce 93% of the worlds heroin, and many Marines reasonably wonder why they are risking their lives to protect poppy field. In a recent report put out by a corruption watchdog, Afghanistan is ranked as the second worst nation when it comes to corruption (America is ranked 19th). The only nation to beat them out was Somalia, whose government consists, I believe, of one town and a US-subsidized McDonald's.